Regarding the Dalton films, as mentioned above, "The Living Daylights" was one of the biggest hits of 1987---outside of the U.S.

Perhaps "Licence to Kill" would have done better, had they used the original intended location, China, instead of Mexico. But they chose to film in Florida and Mexico mostly due to monetary reasons

As to why Bond films were being released every 2 years in the 1970s and 80s, more or less, it was very simple. They were making alot of money, especially for MGM / United Artists. Each 1980s film cost about 30 M to make, and they were grossing 180-190 M each (aside from Licence to Kill) at the box office.

And yes, SPECTRE, was underwhelming. The whole Blofeld thing was a mistake, in my opinion.

This set is really nice in hand. In my personal view the full base set is much nicer than the last few rittenhouse sets. The black background, then red background SP base cards look superb. The autographs have a gold foil finish and the 007 logo is gold foil, the pictures don’t really do them justice. I was lucky enough to pull some of the tougher pulls including Sean Bean 1:1020, Isabella Scorupco 1:245, Michael Madsen 1:139, Rick Yune 1:139 and the SSP #25 landscape Christopher Waltz.

The gold acetates and the Bond Legacy shadowbox type cards are also very nice and I managed to get one tier 3, BL-37, Pierce Brosnan.

I'm very intrested to see what happens to the prices on these cards especially the 200 card set. I'm almost certain they will fall as there are just not enough collectors around to buy them all at the prices they have opened at no matter how much they are alledgedly worth based on the case prices.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
I'm very intrested to see what happens to the prices on these cards especially the 200 card set. I'm almost certain they will fall as there are just not enough collectors around to buy them all at the prices they have opened at no matter how much they are alledgedly worth based on the case prices.

I think one factor that might keep prices of the full base set high is that most of this will be opened on epack, and as I understand it, card extraction is $0.25 per card, so for the full 200 card base set it’s going to cost you $50 to remove it before you have even listed it if you are selling. I don’t think you will see many full base sets long run.

Yeah, the $.25 a card from ePack stinks.

I keep thinking that eventually COMC will have a free or reduced shipping deal just to reduce all the excess ePack stock they are storing.

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:
Yeah, the $.25 a card from ePack stinks.

I keep thinking that eventually COMC will have a free or reduced shipping deal just to reduce all the excess ePack stock they are storing.

This I don't understand. If COMC is holding physical cards and no one wants them because of shipping or they simply don't want them at all. What will become of the cards?

I don't expect that they will build up a warehouse of unwanted inventory or even want to keep the records. Or will they?

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:
Yeah, the $.25 a card from ePack stinks.

I keep thinking that eventually COMC will have a free or reduced shipping deal just to reduce all the excess ePack stock they are storing.

This I don't understand. If COMC is holding physical cards and no one wants them because of shipping or they simply don't want them at all. What will become of the cards?

I don't expect that they will build up a warehouse of unwanted inventory or even want to keep the records. Or will they?

I expect at some point something will have to give.

There are over 5.6 million physical cards currently on the ePack marketplace -- plus who knows how many are 'locked' on ePack and not showing up on the marketplace. I'd also expect a pretty similar number have been transferred to COMC, plus the cards that have yet to been pulled or combined need to be stored somewhere. . .

How much space does 5 million cards take up?

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:

How much space does 5 million cards take up?

Anyone fancy a fire?

quote:

Originally posted by Goldfish:
This set is really nice in hand. In my personal view the full base set is much nicer than the last few rittenhouse sets. The black background, then red background SP base cards look superb. The autographs have a gold foil finish and the 007 logo is gold foil, the pictures don’t really do them justice. I was lucky enough to pull some of the tougher pulls including Sean Bean 1:1020, Isabella Scorupco 1:245, Michael Madsen 1:139, Rick Yune 1:139 and the SSP #25 landscape Christopher Waltz.

Pics or it didn't happen! Well done on that one. I'd be happy with a base Waltz.

I don't have any cards in hand but I like what I have seen so far. There was some negativity towards the design before release however I think the gun-barrel motif is very 'Bondian' and like how heavily it has been used on the base and autograph cards, and I like that the base set features rare and infrequently seen characters. Upper Deck even introduced me to the name Clifford Price (go look that one up!). VERY impressed.

The set reminds me a bit of RA's first Bond set, 40th Anniversary. Inserts for the gadgets, villains, lots of colour, lots of effort. A solid autograph line up, nice clean designs. The "See the World" chase set is something new in all the years of Bond cards.

It's hard to sum up a release made up of lots of variety. Unusual that the base set has 200 cards of the same design, but in three different colours: grey, black, and red, and the parallel base set is also three different colours: silver, rainbow foil, gold acetate. So unlike most parallel sets that collectors chase, you can't build a 'rainbow' as none of the characters are available on all the different card stocks.
The parallel set will be VERY tough to put together but at least they have more visual appeal than the foil stamps you see from RA and Topps. Very savvy to make the gold acetates all Bond girls to keep to keep people chasing.

The auto list is strong, particularly for a first set. All on card which they had to be to come close to anything RA did. Inscriptions are a nice touch but I can take or leave character names. Also, card numbering is the same between regular and inscription autos meaning you can pick and choose which versions to get so they are more like variants than different cards.

Sadly I think the biggest negative about this release is that it's all pretty much been done before. I REALLY like the base auto design, but I have nearly all the names I want on RA cards already. So why chase these down?
Sean Bean and Jeffrey Wright are short printed and expensive, but both signed loads of cards for RA and can still be had CHEAP.
Famke Janssen is my favourite Bond girl but her signature is so poor now why bother with her new cards?

That said, getting Christoph Waltz is a BIG deal. I want him more for Django and Inglorious Basterds than Bond. A phenomenal actor and a real coup for Upper Deck. Nice to see Rick Yune involved again and the other new face in Andrew Scott.

Still, a surprisingly solid effort.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: X,

quote:

Originally posted by X:
Still, a surprisingly solid effort.

I have 2 boxes I'm holding and I will post the breaks in a couple of days. As soon as they put up the auto list I thought it looked good and the general early sentiment seems to bear that out. I say that before opening mine because even if an individual doesn't have such good luck, it wouldn't take away from the average product.

What I do want to point out to UD is that the positive feelings are coming from a product where you have departed from the skipped box formula of Alien, Marvel titles, and the like, which I have been yelling about for years. Indeed I would never had touched JB if it were skipped boxes. I don't even mind the upcoming ePacks when you can see value and positives in the boxes.

So good for UD. You can do it. Will break soon in the other thread.

Can someone with a box please post an image of the wrapper.

Many thanks

John

No one else thinks the design of the portrait-oriented autograph cards in this set looks really cheap and amateurish, then? Just me?

quote:

Originally posted by ravenheart:
No one else thinks the design of the portrait-oriented autograph cards in this set looks really cheap and amateurish, then? Just me?

In what way?

quote:

Originally posted by ravenheart:
No one else thinks the design of the portrait-oriented autograph cards in this set looks really cheap and amateurish, then? Just me?

I don't know if you have had these cards in hand yet, or are just looking at the photos. To my mind, they are much better when they are in hand. I think I know what you mean though. In photos the autograph card design can give off that TOPPS NOW vibe. Talk about cheap cards. The made to order weeklies are junk.

But no, I've opened my first box, and the autograph cards of JB don't look cheap at all. The photos are large enough and clean. There is gold lines around all the sections, including the frame and gold logos. The on-card space is large enough to contain the signature and one of the inscriptions I just pulled. I think a brighter color than gold could have been used to make the character name stand out more from the white background, but let's not quibble.

Design looks appeal to different people and maybe the layout isn't for everyone, but the autograph cards don't look or feel cheap to me.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

I don't expect that they will build up a warehouse of unwanted inventory or even want to keep the records. Or will they?

Well, if any company has the reputation of holding product in a warehouse to give the illusion of rarity it would be Upper Deck.

quote:

Originally posted by X:

That said, getting Christoph Waltz is a BIG deal. I want him more for Django and Inglorious Basterds than Bond. A phenomenal actor and a real coup for Upper Deck. Nice to see Rick Yune involved again and the other new face in Andrew Scott.

Still, a surprisingly solid effort.

I picked up the Waltz for all the same reasons.

Another interesting thing I noticed with the Waltz is that he is signing his full name for this release. Many of his authenticated sigs for sale are just some version of CW.

If he should sign for future sets it would be interesting to see if he reverts back to the initials. Sort of like the difference between early and current Zoe Saldana cards.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:


What I do want to point out to UD is that the positive feelings are coming from a product where you have departed from the skipped box formula of Alien, Marvel titles, and the like, which I have been yelling about for years. Indeed I would never had touched JB if it were skipped boxes. I don't even mind the upcoming ePacks when you can see value and positives in the boxes.

Ok Raven, I have never dealt with the epack although I do understand it has something to do with digital cards that can be redeemed for real ones? What is the skip box and in particular with the James Bond Set how are the stated odds (i.e. 1 per so many pack) changed or impacted by epacks or skip box?

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:


What I do want to point out to UD is that the positive feelings are coming from a product where you have departed from the skipped box formula of Alien, Marvel titles, and the like, which I have been yelling about for years. Indeed I would never had touched JB if it were skipped boxes. I don't even mind the upcoming ePacks when you can see value and positives in the boxes.

Ok Raven, I have never dealt with the epack although I do understand it has something to do with digital cards that can be redeemed for real ones? What is the skip box and in particular with the James Bond Set how are the stated odds (i.e. 1 per so many pack) changed or impacted by epacks or skip box?

I can't speak for ePacks because I don't buy them. It is a UD invention and the cards typically come out about 90 days after the traditional release. Some titles have gone straight to ePack as the only release. The only issues I have ever had with the ePacks is that some hits coming in late became exclusive to the ePacks and were never in the boxes and it seemed as though many big hits are held back for the ePack release. Now UD has said all hit ratios are the same. I am not anti-ePack, I just want value in the boxes, if there are boxes.

The skip box formula for hits that has become the norm for UD products is something else. I prefer autograph cards. I buy products with autograph cards. UD puts autograph cards in all their products like Alien and the Marvel titles, but you are not guaranteed an autograph because other hits are manufactured relics, sketches, printing plates, etc. and they rotate the type of hit seeded in the boxes. Most of the time it is hard to pull an autograph, which of course makes them more valuable if you do find one that is not an artist or some designer.

So I can buy a box, get the guaranteed number of hits, and have no autograph. Another collector who wants one of the other kind, like a sketch, may pull an auto and a fake patch and get no sketch at all. So that's what I call skip boxes, when you don't know the type of hits your box may have or the number of hits may rotate around so that some have only one and some have more than one. You can never have equal value, but you should at least have equal distribution in the type so that you know if you are interested in what you could get. At least that's how I look at it.

So this one has 2 autos guaranteed and you will get at least that much. No skipping.

quote:

Originally posted by X:

quote:

Originally posted by ravenheart:
No one else thinks the design of the portrait-oriented autograph cards in this set looks really cheap and amateurish, then? Just me?

In what way?

I mean they look like what a collector with a reasonable grasp of Microsoft Paint might come up with as a design to get custom cards signed at conventions.

Sure they're professionally printed on decent stock and whatnot, but it's a seriously less-than-pro design.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
I don't know if you have had these cards in hand yet, or are just looking at the photos. To my mind, they are much better when they are in hand. I think I know what you mean though. In photos the autograph card design can give off that TOPPS NOW vibe. Talk about cheap cards. The made to order weeklies are junk.

But no, I've opened my first box, and the autograph cards of JB don't look cheap at all. The photos are large enough and clean. There is gold lines around all the sections, including the frame and gold logos. The on-card space is large enough to contain the signature and one of the inscriptions I just pulled. I think a brighter color than gold could have been used to make the character name stand out more from the white background, but let's not quibble.

Design looks appeal to different people and maybe the layout isn't for everyone, but the autograph cards don't look or feel cheap to me.

Most of that's manufacturing, not design. I'm sure they've printed them up just lovely after they put the crayons away